Posted tagged ‘London 08’

For our final piece of coverage on the London 08 preview (again thanks to The Stinger Report for the news and pictures), we look at what GlobalVR, Taito and IT had to show off at the event.

GlobalVR – GVR was represented by their European distributor Cosmic Video Amusement. Here was a first look at GVR’s EA NASCAR Racing. The deluxe cabinet was at the show and provided “intense and compelling graphics and action.” Nascar will go on test in the UK soon, with special featuers such as “drafting”, making for a great two-player racing title.

America’s Army was also available, we posted impressions on the game recently and Stinger reports that the game provides a “unique experience that could be placed in bars as well as conventional amusement locations.”

Aliens : Extermination Deluxe and Paradise Lost were also at the show and both games have proved to be popular games in the market. With recent price reductions on all GVR games, the company has caused a stir in the amusement industry .

Taito -Being represented by distributor Electrocoin, Taito was represented on the floor with their latest racer, Chase HQ 2. For the first time the deluxe cabinet was shown, along with two other versions of the game. It looks great and offers something a little different as well.

Incredible Technologies – Electrocoin alsohad some games on hand from IT, including Silver Strike Bowling , Golden Tee Live 2008 and the aptly named ‘Bags‘ game.

Also from the Stinger:

The event boded well for ATEI in January, though there is expected to be some more big surprise with Tekken 6, a brand new racing game and a selection of hardcore titles from Konami (absent from Preview this year). For more detail on what was at Preview we would recommend reading our The Stinger Report coverage at the end of the month.

We’ll be sure to cover that as well.

Our thoughts – It looks like 2008 is shaping up to be a good year for arcades as well although it is concerning about the genre crowding that is occurring. Games like Primeval Hunt look like a good start (as was 2Spicy, which seems as though it won’t appear here in the States), as does that Panzer Simulator game. But for the industry to continue its stride and to become more competitive against the console market, we’ll need more new ideas of experiences that just aren’t as fun at home – while maintaining reasonable prices of course. Thanks again to The Stinger Report for the coverage.

Continuing the coverage on the London Preview 08 the Stinger also got a look at what Namco and others had to offer.In Europe Namco is teamed up with Brent Sales, which also sells games from Raw Thrills.

Namco – They only had one major new release to show off, Maximum Tune 3. A 4 player setup was available and offers a “hardcore view of the custom street car race experience.”

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Mario Kart 2 was setup right next to Maximum Tune 3 to offer a softer racing style typical with the Mario Kart format.

Raw Thrills – Fast and Furious: Drift was onsite at the Namco Bandai booth, along with other Raw Thrills title such as Super Bike and Big Buck Hunter Pro.

An interesting and unique game known as iGO: Panzer Elite simulator was also seen here – I am not sure if this is Triotech product or not as the cabinet looks similar to something I have seen before (although I didn’t have a chance to play it). This allows players to experience WWII tank action with a unique simulator setup.

The London 08 Preview is over and with it information on what we can expect to see in arcades next year. Many thanks to Kevin Williams and The Stinger Report for this information. Click on the images to enlarge.

Sega – Demonstrated several games, including a 60% complete version of Sega RaceTV. Two RaceTV cabinets were available and they were quite popular. The game features a Boost feature and a driving style similar to F-Zero. The complete version will be shown at ATEI and include more tracks and a password feature.

An early version of Primeval Hunt was also demonstrated, although it appears to be a larger screen version than what we have seen, which indicates more than one version for operators to purchase.

Virtua Fighter 5 was at the show although Sega doesn’t expect it to sell well (probably because of the console versions already being available). Still it looks great and if they gave it a decent price, it could probably do better than they expect.

New versions of Initial D4, with a larger screen and an operational IC Card reader was quite popular at the show as well.

AfterBurner Simulator was on the floor, it’s the full motion version that looks great and offers quite a unique experience.

Shoot This -Win This! is a new Skill With Prize game that looks really fun and could be the next huge thing in this genre after Stacker. Looks like stocking it with Nintendo DSes is a good idea as well. This is still in prototype form.

Let’s Go Jungle Special Attraction was available to play, it is setup similarly to House of The Dead 4 Special, with guns that are nearly the same.

Here’s a shot of some Sega tokens that were at the show. Stay tuned for more from the show!